Gaseous effluents from electronic material and device manufacturing processes may include a wide variety of chemical compounds which are used and/or produced during such processes. During processing (e.g. deposition, diffusion, etch, clean, epitaxy, etc.), some processes may produce undesirable byproducts including, for example, perfluorocompounds (PFCs) or byproducts that may decompose to form PFCs. PFCs are recognized to be strong contributors to global warming. These compounds, and others which may also be harmful to human beings and/or the environment, may hereinafter be referred to as “harmful chemical species” and may be included in the phrase “chemical species of interest”. It is desirable to remove harmful chemical species from the gaseous effluent, or convert harmful chemical species into less harmful or non-harmful chemical species, before the gaseous effluent is vented into the atmosphere.